


Call My Bluff and Watch Me Fall

by musamihi



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Espionage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Hate Sex, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-28 23:11:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16732437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musamihi/pseuds/musamihi
Summary: On a mission to gather data about one of the First Order's early sympathizers, Poe is recognized by his least favorite security bureau agent.  Luckily for him, Terex finds it convenient to keep him around - but the cover story is really, really not to his taste.





	Call My Bluff and Watch Me Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [perlaret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perlaret/gifts).



Poe skidded to a halt before the maintenance panel, his neat, polished shoes squeaking on the shining stone floor. This was the right one, he was pretty sure - seventh from the palace’s rotunda, in the fifth spinward corridor, on the tenth level - and even if it wasn’t, he didn’t have time to go back and count again. His window was narrow. He fumbled in the criminally undersized pocket inside the lapel of his jacket - a rich, satiny green he might admit to liking on his deathbed - glanced up and down the bright, high corridor to be sure the coast was clear - and shoved it into the panel’s port, reciting the access code to himself under his breath as the second ticked by. “Xesh eight two esk three. Xesh eight two esk three. Xesh eight two – _come on, shit, hurry up_ – esk three.” He gave a violent little tug at the high collar biting into his jaw.

Finally, the access query dialogue blinked onto the screen, and he tapped in his code and held his breath. Somewhere in the High Governor’s private suite, there were a set of files Poe needed - the Resistance needed - to help sway her to throw her lot in with them, rather than with the First Order, to whom she had begun to appear dangerously sympathetic. Whether those files had to do with blackmail, or finances, or _what_ , Poe didn’t know, and he didn’t care. Whatever brought her and Charros’s essential reserves of hyperfuel precursor around to the right side - it was fine with him. No promise, no threat, no amount of money had been able to convince any of her own subjects to sneak into the palace and do this dirty work themselves (perhaps because of the Charrosian penchant for really spectacularly creative executions); the closest he’d been able to get was a forged invitation to the High Governor’s installation anniversary gala, and a _good luck, you poor bastard._

So here he was, starched and brushed and all decked out, sweating like a cadet on exam day, waiting for this panel to accept his code before the security droid made its next scheduled sweep.

The light shone blue - _access granted_ \- and Poe snatched the datastick out, turned on his heel, and hurried back toward the rotunda. He dropped the stick into a grating vent; someone would find it eventually, but by then this would hopefully all be over. The executable code on the datastick should have disabled the locks to the turbolift to the High Governor’s suite, so that was step two out of about thirty-seven done, and he needed to move on quickly to -

“Excuse me,” came a clipped, businesslike voice from just over his shoulder. “May I help you?”

Poe didn’t freeze - he did his best to turn casually, and to look relieved to see one of the High Governor’s palace guards not a pace away - but his best was, quite frankly, not good. His smile was too stiff, his posture too ostentatiously relaxed. He tried to put his hands in his pockets, only to remember that these trim, too-tailored trousers had none. “Hey! Hey, man.” Okay, no, that was bad. “I was just trying to find - wow, this is embarrassing - I’m not sure where I’m supposed -”

“Well,” came _another_ voice, from back toward the rotunda - a smooth, deep, smug, eminently detestable one Poe knew entirely too well. This time, he did freeze. “ _There_ you are.”

The guard’s gaze shifted to Agent Terex, his face taking on a less extreme shade of the dislike Poe himself felt. The people of Charros had no great love for the occupiers to thom their High Governor was about to sell them out. But they knew where her allegiances lay; and they knew whom not to cross. “This man is with you?” The guard gave Terex a once-over, before adding a less-than-deferential: “Sir?”

Poe turned, finally, to see him: Terex, who had the enviable luxury of a uniform, and who therefore hadn’t been required to dress up like a pompous numbskull. (It would not, admittedly, have been much of a costume.) He was neat and slick in his perfectly black getup, his Security Bureau insignia twinkling menacingly from his breast. The grin on his face made Poe want to stab something.

“He is,” Terex replied, regarding Poe with a weight of fond condescension that shouldn’t have been supportable on human features. “I told you, darling - the tables are on the eighth level. He’s not the brightest star in the sky,” Terex continued, striding right up to Poe and placing his hand on his shoulder, heavy with familiarity - and tilting his head a little to look straight at him, a glint in his eye that could have blinded a cockpit. “But he has a _good heart._ ”

The irresistible force of Poe’s loathing met the immovable object of his need not to get kicked out of the palace quite yet, and the only calculation that mattered, much to his powerful chagrin, was how long he could manage to stay here to complete this mission. What Terex was up to, he didn’t know - he doubted Terex knew himself, he couldn’t _possibly_ know the Resistance had infiltrated this place, the plans had been made mere days ago, on the strictest need-to-know basis - but however probable it was that it wouldn’t be in his best interest, Poe didn’t have much choice but to go along. It was better than getting tossed out on his ass immediately.

Hopefully.

“Sorry,” Poe managed to bite out through a lifeless smile. “Sorry, _sweetheart._ I thought you said tenth.”

The guard’s face was blank, but for a thin veil of stoic irritation. “Please return to the celebration.” He began herding them toward the rotunda; Poe took Terex’s right arm, the better to ensure he didn’t find a blaster at his back. “Thank you.” The guard split off when they reached the central atrium, heading toward the next spoking corridor, to chase off any other lost partygoers.

“Imagine seeing _you_ here,” Terex said, low and confidential, when they were out of earshot, their voices lost in the wash of revelers occupying the dance floors hovering at this level on the massive, roofless central column that made up the palace’s main public area, level after level after level of floating ausements. “The Resistance has something on the Governor, don’t they? I knew someone would. Let’s hear it. If it’s good enough, maybe I won’t turn you over to Her Eminence.”

“Fuck off.”

“Now, now.” Terex clicked his tongue. “That’s no way to speak to someone who’s just done you a favor. Don’t be an ass, Poe. We might just be able to help one another.” 

“I don’t want anything to do with -”

“ _Think_ before you talk. You’ll find it helpful. Now - what’s your name?”

“What?”

The look Terex gave him was positively withering. “On your invitation.”

At the waist-high railing separating the circular atrium from the rotunda, Poe looked down into the busy, festive, expensively-appointed chasm; and then up. He needed to be on level twenty-eight, next. “Avla Pollix.”

“Well, _Avla_ , let’s go win some money. And you can think about my very generous offer.”

Poe stepped with him onto one of the gently sloping belts that moved the guests between levels, somehow resisting the urge to shove him off. “Word is, the First Order has Charros in the bag,” he muttered. “That the Governor’s ready to hand over the keys. Why would you help me?”

“You don’t know much about spies.” Terex sighed. “Or spying. If you’re the Resistance’s reconnaissance man, they need all the help they can get. Tell me what you’re after. Maybe I can be of some assistance.” Poe disengaged his arm, ready to storm off on level nine and leave Terex to decide how much of a scene he wanted to make - but Terex grabbed his arm again, neatly slotting it back around his own, and pressing Poe’s wrist against the unmistakable shape of the barrel of a blaster. “Again,” he said, with another of those smooth, sweetly patronizing smiles, “try to think, first. Let’s go.”

Off onto level eight they went: into a maze of card and gaming tables, all attended by various Charrosian officials, dignitaries from neighboring systems, local bigwigs, and an army of service staff and droids. Terex led them to a table with a few staid-looking people watching a set of dice tumble through a complex series of motions in midair. They took in Terex’s uniform and gave him a respectful nod and a chilly distance, and Poe’s hopes of absorbing anything useful were dashed. That no one here was willing to get chummy with Terex was a nod toward hope for the inherent decency of all sentient beings the galaxy over, but it didn’t bode particularly well for intelligence collection.

“So, what’s our next stop?” Terex asked, leaning casually against the table, accepting a glass of wine when a drone slid lazily by with a tray. “Level twenty-one, races? Three, the auction? It’s your call, dearest. Wherever you want to go. I’ll make it happen.” He held out his hand; the dice dropped neatly into his palm. “Tell me your heart’s desire.”

Poe hesitated, watching the table rearrange itself into a series of shuffling circles. He was here at Terex’s pleasure, anyway, for now; he felt he might as well take the help he was offering, and worry about breaking free of him when he came to it. “Twenty-eight.” he said, keeping his gaze leveled at the table, not trusting himself to look at him with anything but baleful resentment. It was an expression that would have helped him blend into the crowd, certainly, but presumably Terex’s arm candy should not openly despise him.

One of the men standing across the table cleared his throat; Terex laughed. “Can I buy you dinner first?”

Poe didn’t have time to ask, backpedal, or even glare before a woman in a blindingly silver tunic materialized at Terex’s side, a vaporizer hanging from a delicate chain draped casually between her fingers. “When did you learn _those_ manners?” 

Poe had the pleasure of watching Terex’s smile grow fixed and sharp, then - of watching him turn with barely-concealed irritation to spread his hands in greeting to the delicate, cheerful-looking woman grinning up at him. “Vellen. You’re out of prison.”

“Who’s this?” Vellen asked, jabbing her vaporizer in Poe’s direction. “I didn’t see you come in with a date.”

“This is Avla. He likes to be fashionably late. It never ceases to amaze me how long some people can spend in front of a mirror.”

“You could try remembering what it’s like to have hair,” Poe suggested, with his best attempt at acid sweetness.

It went over well enough for Vellen, who threw her head back and laughed. “Where did he find you?” When her gaze suddenly narrowed in on him, her interest keen and her smile spreading, he realized he’d hesitated - there was a hint of blank fear on his face, the kind that always slipped through when he found himself trying to make up a story.

Terex, aggravatingly enough, came to his rescue. “He was singing in a nightclub,” he said, slinging his arm around Poe’s waist with a protectiveness that spoke incredibly highly of his acting abilities. “Not very good, I’m afraid. You know how I like my charity cases.”

Vellen took a drag off her vaporizer. “Medium rare?”

“Ever charming. But if you’ll excuse us, we were just about to -”

“You were just about to nothing. The Governor’s secretary is about forty seconds out, on his way to invite you to a private audience. I don’t think your plus-one’s invited. Don’t worry.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “I’ll entertain him.”

Terex didn’t seem to think much of this idea, but, his stated willingness to help Poe and his work for the Resistance aside, he clearly wasn’t intending on shirking his duties in representing the First Order. His face hardened, calculation obvious behind his eyes. But he had no choice; and when the secretary came to fetch him, giving him a more subservient greeting than had any of the Charrosians before him, Terex disappeared in his wake, giving Poe one last suspicious glare on his way to the escalators.

“So,” Vellen said. “You must know him pretty well, for him to bring you to something like this.”

“Hm,” Poe said, swallowing back an anxious flutter in his throat. Nightclub singer was not the cover he’d come here prepared to defend.

“Well, listen. I know you don’t want to talk about him. That would be ungrateful, wouldn’t it? How about this.” She slipped a card out of - well, probably not out of thin air, but where else it had come from, Poe couldn’t have said. “If you ever hear anything _really_ interesting about our mutual friend - drop me a line. I’ll be very grateful.”

She was already on her way to the next table by the time it occurred to Poe to try to call in that chip a little early. “Hey - hey.” She stopped, and glanced over her shoulder. “You happen to know what level that audience is on?”

Her curiosity crinkled in the corners of her eyes; and, after a moment’s silent smile, he mouthed to him: _seven_. 

Which was worth a secret, Poe decided, if ever he should come into one. 

For now - he had work to do, unsupervised by his new would-be handler. He wound his way through the tables, and onto the belts that bore him up, and up, and up, trying to determine exactly how far behind his little adventure had set him. Ten minutes? Fifteen? The turbolift locks were meant to have been disabled for half an hour, but there was no telling when the defect would be discovered and corrected. It was possible his window was already closed; possible he’d never had one.

But he had to try. The hardest part, as it happened, was keeping himself from sprinting up the walkway, elbowing past other guests in equally ridiculous getups, forcing his way through the throngs. It was an absolutely heroic exercise of patience, waiting with only a minor scowl on his face (which at least seemed to put off a couple attempts at conversation) as he ascended finally to the twenty-eighth level, by which point the crowd had thinned, and the diversions had gradually become less enticing or obvious. 

The twenty-eighth level was nothing but residential suites, it seemed; each of the corridors spoking off the rotunda had room numbers assigned, aside from the quadrant dedicated to the lifts to the High Governor’s private offices. Poe made his way as calmly as he could to the proper lift, touched the panel, and nearly melted in relief when it slid open for him, silently and without objection.

Two floors up; and then, four doors, three datasticks, and one panicked encounter with a bioident-enabled safe later, he had what he was looking for - what his informants had promised him he’d find. Its contents were as opaque to him as ever, just another chip with another pack of files he’d probably never see, some token in the distasteful bargaining process between a righteous cause and the kind of sordid, unworthy people it sadly needed to survive – but it meant that he could _leave_ , and so he was inordinately fond of it. He followed the instructions he’d memorized by rote to copy it to the blank he’d been given, secured that in the dedicated concealed seam in his waistband, took care to rearrange the room as he’d found it, left the office, left the suite, headed out into the hall –

And found himself shoved up against the wall with what did _not_ feel like a stunner between his shoulder blades. 

“Explain yourself,” a guard barked at him - not the same one, thank the stars for small favors. 

“I was just looking for - _ow_ ,” Poe gasped, exaggerating the sting that resulted from the metal pressing on his spine. 

“There is nothing on this level you’re permitted to access.” The guard began to twist his arm down, as though to restrain it.

And Poe, hating himself more than he had ever imagined possible, shut his eyes, and said: “I don’t think Agent Terex would appreciate this.”

* * *

And so it was that, forty minutes later, Avla Pollix, Agent Terex’s handsome but not overly intelligent date, cursed with the worst sense of direction in the galaxy, was picked up from the palace’s security center on level two by his deeply abashed boyfriend. Terex’s frantic, wordless attempts to determine whether or not Poe had implicated him in the scheme were by far the highlight of Poe’s evening; he kept coy and played dumb, his face a carefree, innocent mask as Terex made his apologies, said enough smarmy things about Charros and the High Governor to grease the gears of an entire capital ship, and made an admirable show of not wanting to strangle Avla _quite_ to death. The First Order had the High Governor’s confidence, he explained. Surely, she would understand. Surely, she wouldn’t wish to derail such a mutually profitable friendship over one silly, wayward, nosy little druk-for-brains.

The fun took a bit of a downturn when they left the security center, and Terex made for the turbolifts instead of the rotunda. “You don’t want to dance, _darling?_ ” Poe asked, tugging back against the hand at his arm; Terex just gripped his wrist, quick and steely.

“I’m tired,” he said, not quite bothering to produce any affection in his voice. “You must be, too. You’ve had such a _journey_ , after all.”

Pulling away and running wasn’t an option, not after he’d drawn so much attention to himself - not after he’d tied himself so explicitly to Terex and had relied so heavily on his favor. Not, at least, in front of all the palace cops. And so Poe stepped into the lift, gauging every second what his chances might be should he shake free and dart out - until the doors closed, and the chance was gone, and he was here, alone in a turbolift with Terex, a collection of extremely valuable information, and a tension so tangible it was like a presence unto itself.

“So,” Poe began after a few silent moments, his eyes scanning the ceiling. “Are these things monitored, or -”

Terex sank his hand into Poe's hair just below the crown of his head, and pulled him in - it was all Poe could do not to jerk back and knee him in the stomach. “Shut,” Terex said, his lips close enough to kiss, “up.”

That was a _yes_ , Poe supposed. Fine. He bit Terex’s lip to get him the hell out of his face - and, when that gambit failed entirely, and Terex just glared stonily at him with a really deeply disconcerting apathy for the teeth sunk into his flesh, Poe just tugged back, jutting his chin out in a defiant sort of expression tempered only by his very thin pretense of a smile. “Just wondering,” he said, sing-song and innocent and utterly ridiculous. Terex, to his credit, didn’t actually, physically roll his eyes - but it practically rolled off of him in waves.

Terex managed a decently relaxed posture until they arrived at what must have been his accommodations - not terribly encouraging, Poe thought, that Terex was willing to show him his personal sleeping quarters; he evidently didn’t feel all that threatened - until the door hissed shut behind them, and in one quick, sharp fumble, Terex’s blaster was out and Poe’s was only half-drawn from his ankle holster because of these _fucking_ pants, and Terex had him by the collar of his very nice jacket and he was face-first against the wall for the second time tonight, coughing from a blow to the solar plexus that Terex had somehow managed to fit in during the struggle. One had to admire his dedication to his craft.

“Give it to me.” No more teasing in his voice - no more pleasure at his own cleverness, no more pretense at generosity. At _assistance._

“What?” Poe croaked, craning his neck to look over his shoulder at him, his eyebrows raised in question.

“Whatever you took from the Governor’s suite, you miserable little pest.”

“I didn’t take - _ah._ ” With great precision or luck, Terex had found the same spot on his spine the guard had up on level twenty-eight. “ _Stop_ that.”

“I offered to help you. We could have worked together, you know - been in and out with no trouble. Instead, you’ve chosen to make my night _difficult_. I don’t appreciate it.” He reached down to divest Poe of the weapon at his ankle, frisked him thoroughly, and gripped his shoulder to spin him around and pin him back against the wall, a hand planted on his chest. “So now we’re going to do this the hard way.”

“I don’t have anything. I didn’t find it - I don’t even know what I was looking for.”

“I believe _that_.” The little twist of a smile on Terex’s face was the first genuine thing Poe had seen out of him all night. “But I know you found it; if you hadn’t, they’d have caught you elbows-deep in a safe, instead of in the hall.” He stepped back, and waved his blaster at him. “Jacket off.”

Almost more annoyed to find that he’d been looking forward to keeping the jacket than at being ordered around, Poe whipped the thing off, tossing it to the floor. “All yours. Are we finished, here?”

“It’s not in the jaket, is it.”

“I don’t _have_ anyth -”

“Shoes. Let’s go.”

Poe kicked off his narrow, pinching shoes, nudging them away from himself across the floor. “You realize,” he said, his voice heavy and dry, “you never did buy me dinner.”

“I’ll consider breakfast. Come on - leave it. All of it. Off. Don’t worry; you can have my bathrobe when I lock you in the closet.” His grin brightened a touch. “We wouldn’t want you to be _too_ uncomfortable.” 

That, of course, couldn’t happen; the pants had to come with, or this whole infuriating experience would be for nothing. Poe stripped off his shirt, dropped it to the floor, tugged his belt away, tossed it aside, unfastened his trousers, feigned an awkward hop as he was tugging one tapered leg off - and lunged forward, lashing out at Terex’s arm, striking at his elbow and sending his blaster tumbling to lie under the room’s little desk. In the scuffle that ensued, they dropped to the floor, struggling toward the weapon - Poe’s trousers wound around his leg and hindered him as he tried to slither over the carpet, but that was all right, whatever kept them on his body - and found himself, eventually, breathless and annoyed and slightly carpet-burned, straddling Terex’s chest, one arm across his throat, the other pressed hard down against his elbow. Terex’s fingers were curled around the blaster butt, tightly enough to claim it, if not really to control it. Poe wanted nothing but to grope for that datachip, reassure himself of its presence, and flee, but - he couldn’t spare a hand.

This was not an ideal position at which to come to an impasse.

But here they were. “All right,” Poe panted, after a long beat. “So. You wanted to help me.”

Terex coughed; Poe refused to let up on his throat at all, pegging it for a ruse; and Terex’s eyes narrowed. “Past tense.”

“No.” Poe shook his head. Losing his wiggle room wasn’t an option, right now. “No. You offered. Why? Why would you –”

 _”Because,”_ Terex broke in, all scathing sarcasm, his eyes raking up and down across Poe’s bare chest with a sneer that was decidedly less than complimentary. “You’re just _so_ pretty.”

Poe huffed, and glanced toward the window. He could shimmy out of here, he guessed; it seemed he was going to have to. “Dick,” he muttered. “Why can’t you just - you know what? Never mind. It’s been fun.” If this was how it had to be, it was how it had to be - and a risk he had to take. He dropped, heavy and sudden, onto Terex’s chest, rolled over onto his arm, pinning it to the floor, and just barely managed to scrabble to his feet again, blaster in hand, evading Terex’s attempt roll and pin him in turn. Poe ran for the window - or, more properly, hopped, at a tenuous balance with a pair pants dragging behind him from one ankle, and he shoved the desk chair onto the floor behind him to impede Terex for the one extra second he’d need to open the latch - and he _had_ it, the window soared right open, he was out, he was _out_ –

And something caught at his ankle and he tumbled forward, only _just_ catching the sill with one hand, saving himself from plummeting right down into the palace gardens, twenty-eight levels down. He swung up to grab the sill with both hands, and hung there, gasping, his heart in his throat, in nothing but a pair of shorts. 

He looked up to see Terex in the window, Poe's pants in hand, staring down at him with an almost thoughtful cast to his face. Poe didn’t have to ask what question he was contemplating.

Poe’s eyes shot to the pants. Terex glanced at them - and then back down at Poe, with a smile that spread like oil on a puddle. He tossed the pants back into the room. “Goodnight, Avla,” he said, reaching up to place his hands at the top of the window pane, watching with evident delight as Poe heeded this warning and scrambled for another handhold. “See you soon.”

Poe leapt to grab onto another piece of stonework; Terex slammed the window shut. And for a moment, Poe just hung there, alone in the dark and the rising breeze.

“Shit,” he muttered, looking down. “Shit, shit, shit.” His only consolation, as he picked his way down the mercifully ornate palace walls, was the hope that someone might see Avla Pollix making a mostly-naked, pre-dinner escape from Agent Terex’s bedroom, and that it would be the talk of the rest of the party.

* * *

Poe’s arrival at the palace the next night was somewhat more complicated and less pleasant than party-crashing; but he had to take what he could get from his increasingly panicked Charrosian contacts, who were so distressed by his failure to complete the mission on the first go that it had taken everything he had to convince them not to bolt, not to turn him over, to let him try again. Spending a few hours in a crate, honestly, wasn’t all that much pressure compared to the directive from General Organa looming large in the back of his mind. He’d reported his setback to her, of course - minus one or two inconsequential details concerning his state of dress - and her response had been precisely what he’d known it would be.

Be careful. Come home in one piece. But if you can, if in _any_ way you can - get that damned datastick.

In a servant’s uniform, he was, at least, more comfortable than he had been on the previous evening. He couldn’t count on being any less conspicuous to anyone who looked at him head-on, he knew, having made such a splash last night, but it helped him sneak and dart and slink up once again to the twenty-eighth level. There, all it took was one swipe of a slicer key, sufficient to bypass these less closely-guarded lock systems than those he’d faced last night - and he slipped into Terex’s room, where a single lamp was glowing by the bed.

For a moment, he thought he’d gotten lucky, and arrived before Terex has returned for the night - but then the bathroom door swung open, releasing a cloud of fresh-smelling steam and Terex, wrapped in a bathrobe that couldn’t quite seem to reach his knees.

Terex grinned at him, entirely unphased by the blaster leveled at him. “There you are.”

“You knew I’d be coming by,” Poe said, watching with flat irritation as Terex walked right past him, all but elbowing the weapon out of his way. “You didn’t think you should - I don’t know, put a shirt on?”

“You don’t get to dictate how I spent my evenings, Poe.” Terex stopped in front of the mirror hanging over the desk, dashing his fingers through his narrow shock of hair. “I was ready to relax. You don’t mind,” he added, an afterthought that had not even the barest note of question in it, “do you.”

Poe did, in fact, mind; but it had less to do with any breach of etiquette involved in greeting guests - trespassers, whatever - while less than decent than with the deeply obnoxious truth that Terex wasn’t entirely unbearable to look at. He minded that very much. “Do you still have it?” Poe asked, terse.

Terex continued to preen, with eyes only for his own reflection. “I do.”

“Why?” When he received no response other than a showily enigmatic smile - directed, still, at the mirror - Poe marched over to insert himself between Terex and the object of his admiration, shoving in front of the desk and forcing Terex back half a step. _”Why?_ What do you want?” If Terex had been any kind of soldier, he’d already have sent it off to his masters in the Order. “What’s in this for you?”

Crossing his arms slowly over his chest, Terex regarded Poe for a moment, his satisfaction not quite entirely concealed by the way he pressed his mouth into a line. “I’m not like you, Poe,” he began, speaking, as he was wont to do, as though he was addressing a seven year-old. “I don’t stay the course when I can see that it might lead me straight into a black hole. I’m willing to try a different route, sometimes, to find a better destination. Your ideals – well, they’re utterly childish –”

 _”Freedom?”_ Poe burst out, letting his blaster drop to his side, the force of his words, his principles, a far more powerful weapon. “Justice? Peace, and –”

“But the First Order,” Terex continued, rolling right through him, “the First Order _are_ children. Everything they’re fighting for died almost before they were speaking in full sentences.” If there was a flicker in Terex’s smugness, there, Poe chose to attribute it to nothing but a passing anger. He turned his eyes down from Terex’s face, met the span of his chest bare between the lapels of his robe, and looked right back up again. “No one can say how it’ll all pan out. I keep my options open.” Terex’s imperturbable smile had reappeared, and he spread his hands like a showman at the end of a trick. “That’s all it is.”

Poe blinked. A crease shot down between his brows. _”That’s_ supposed to impress me? That’s supposed to make me want to work with you?”

“It’s an explanation,” Terex said with a shrug. “You asked. That’s what’s in it for me. You were expecting – what?” His smile was indulgent; cruel. “Freedom? Justice? Peace?”

Poe felt his face burning with anger; not a good sign. “I don’t see what’s in it for _me_.” The words felt clumsy in his mouth, and, once out in the universe, they sounded even worse.

“An agent with the First Order Security Bureau who keeps his options open, you unimaginable nitwit.” The lack of heat in those words - the complete absence of surprise, the almost affectionate texture of it - made Poe want to punch him in the mouth. “That’s what’s in it for you.”

“Not a reliable one,” Poe shot back. He would rather have hurled the datastick into the infinite black of space than let the First Order have a glimpse of it - whatever it was. Terex’s brand of _maybe, maybe not_ deal-making was worse than nothing, by a lightyear. At least the evil fucks at the top of the First Order’s ranks believed in something - something identifiable, predictable. Something, in other words, that he could fight, and beat. Not like this. 

“What did I tell you?” Terex took half a step forward, and Poe raised his blaster to hip height. “Think, first. Before you talk. Think how valuable that could be. To you. To your General –”

“Don’t talk about her –”

“To your cause.” The robe dipped open as Terex leaned forward, pressing one finger against Poe’s sternum; and as Poe found his eyes drawn once again to the stretch of skin there, now bare clear to his abdomen, he felt an anger rise in him that had little to do with freedom, and justice, and peace. He had never before been furious at anyone’s waist - at their shoulders - at their stupid _fucking_ chin.

Poe set his jaw; he was pretty sure he heard it pop. He turned his coolest, most profoundly unimpressed look up to Terex. “You don’t actually think this is working. Right?”

Terex laughed. “Oh, of course not. You just look so sweet when you’re confused.”

“I am not _confused_.” Just turned on, repulsed, engraged, and - “Except about why in all of space you think I’d ever take anything you offered me.”

“I’d be happy to clear your head a little.” Terex nudged his knee against the inside of Poe’s leg, and Poe tried to step back, but there was the damned _desk_ , and he wound up propped against the edge of it, planting his blaster hand down on the surface for balance. 

He raised his other hand and gave a short, sharp shove to the center of Terex’s chest. “Fuck off,” he growled, incensed to find him sure-footed and contrary, his body giving not an inch to that livid push, and so he did it _again_ , and it felt really awfully good to shove him, unfairly good, even if he wasn’t toppling over and cracking his head like Poe so, so desperately wanted him to - and when Terex seized his wrist and shoved his hand away, Poe dropped his blaster to the floor and set about it with his other hand, not to be deterred. “You’re such,” he snapped, “a fucking asshole.”

“You’re a _complete_ idiot.” Terex pinned his hand down on the desk and kissed him, and Poe grabbed at his shoulder and shoved it away and thought better of it and twisted his hand into his robe and dragged at it - and pulled, jerking him forward into a tangle of arms and disheveled fabric and the leg he hooked over Terex’s hip and an absolutely sprawling mess of trouble, impetuousness, and extremely bad ideas.

* * *

In the end, he kept the jacket. It was easy to do; after dressing once again in the servant's uniform, he just grabbed the pile of his previous day’s clothes from the floor where Terex had deposited them after his search. The pants were a lost cause, carefully split apart and undone at every seam, obviously the focus of Terex’s efforts. The datastick had been removed, and sat now in Poe’s pocket once again, ready to be transported back to Resistance headquarter for analysis. Terex wouldn’t tell him if he’d made a copy, but Poe had to assume. It was the only sensible thing to do.

Because Terex wasn’t the sort of man who helped anyone but himself, for anything but the very worst reasons. If, at any point, Poe had thought, _well, maybe_ \- if he had wondered whether a man who was willing to sell out the First Order might be worth taking on in the chance that _perhaps, perhaps someday_ \- those thoughts had flown from him when the haze of arousal and urgency had lifted. The Resistance could never be served by people like that, for the simple reason that the stain brought by their presence could never be worth whatever material support they provided. Terex was dangerous; he could never be anything but. 

As he slipped into the turbolift with his armload of laundry, something bright tumbled to the floor. He bent to retrieve it, and found himself staring at the silvery face of the card he’d been handed on the casino level.

_If you ever hear anything really interesting about our mutual friend - drop me a line._

Treason was interesting, he supposed. Interesting to quite a lot of people, not least the First Order brass. Possibly interesting enough to ensure that neither he nor the Resistance would ever have to contend with Terex again. This might well be the tool to eliminate that danger - to put away for good a man who could never be anything to him but an obstacle.

When the lift door opened, he checked that the coast was clear, both ways - and hurried out with his jacket under his arm, Vellen’s card lying discarded on the floor.


End file.
